A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) confirmed yesterday that Republicans intend to block anyone President Obama names to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “It’s any nominee,” said McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart. Republicans want substantial changes to the bureau’s structure that would render it ineffective. If the bureau does not have a director by July 21, it “will have limited ability to write new rules or supervise certain financial firms that are not banks, such as payday lenders.”